Once used solely as classified military technology, the use of global positioning systems (GPS) is now widely used in the general populous. Devices, such as Garmin® devices, may be used in cars to direct the driver based on their global position and their desired destination. Alternatively, cars frequently include built-in navigation systems that offer similar services. Smartphones also commonly include basic GPS capabilities for locating the user and directing him or her to a desired destination. Other smartphone applications, such as RunKeeper® for example, use the smartphone's GPS capabilities to track the user's path, speed, elevation, etc. . . . . Despite this broad usage of GPS technology, the problem that location identification can be unwieldy and imprecise remains.
There are several common ways to identify a location. Longitude and latitude coordinates may be extremely precise, but are extremely unwieldy to relay to a GPS device or another person. One might tell a friend to meet him at specific GPS coordinates, which may precisely indicate one's location, but the long strings of numbers are neither easily remembered, nor communicated, nor entered into a device with GPS capabilities. Physical addresses are another common way to identify a location. Again, remembering, communicating, and/or entering addresses can be difficult at times, especially when the address is long—1327 Foothill Boulevard, La Canada Flintridge, Calif., for example. Moreover, some addresses are ambiguous and are not easily input into a GPS device. For an address such as, 1454 US RTE 22 West, Union, N.J., for example, a GPS device might not recognize the input of “Route 22” or “Rte. 22,” but may, unbeknownst to the user, instead require “US RTE 22” exactly in order to recognize the address. Finally, locations may be identified informally, such as “soccer field #3,” “parking lot B,” “the East side entrance to the Central Park reservoir,” or “the dragon ride at Alpha Amusement Park.” Such informal location identifications that don't necessarily have an address are particularly prone to confusion and miscommunication. All of these types of locations and others may need to be communicated from time to time, and all have their disadvantages as far as simple, precise location communication.
Google™ Place Pages provides a service where a business may be provided with a QR code associated with that the business. One who scans such a QR code is provided with information about the business and an option to click for maps or directions to that location. Although a useful tool, this service does not appear to accept input of locations other than addresses, nor does it provide simple process to simply scan for directions, and as such, does not address many of the situations outlined above.
Therefore there is a need for easy assignation and communication of precise coordinates of a specific location.